Working Party. The Executive Committee established the Working Party of Fred Nind and Mel Owen on 29th May 2010.
Objectives.
Timescale: the 2011 membership year.
Report. The Working Party was asked to produce a written report of the survey findings complete with their recommendations. It was prepared in January 2012 and presented to the two committees shortly thereafter. This version, bereft of recommendations, mirrors the presentation given to the membership at Grasmere 4th November 2011. The Powerpoint slides shown at that presentation have been incorporated into this webpage.
Mechanism. The membership survey took the form of a questionnaire. The wording and detail were refined by the working party with input from the Executive Committee. The questionnaire was available in the following two formats with identical wording:
Prize Draw. After eliminating all duplicate and potentially fraudulent entries, 1473 forms were entered in a random draw for a single cash prize of £200.
Budget. The EC (on 28th August 2010) established a Development Fund budget of £2,000 which was exceeded by almost 50%:
Most surveys were probably completed concurrently with MAF completion.
This shows MAFs and electronic Survey questionnaires at the end of each month, normalised to 100% of their respective quantities at the end of September. It was impossible to include paper questionnaires since no record was made of their receipt date, but most of these were submitted in the early part of the year; had they been included, the two graphs might well have overlapped more perfectly. This should give a high degree of confidence that the survey questionnaires were completed only by members.
The following suggests that few would have been completed after the end of September.
The sample size of 1505 is remarkable high in relation to the total population of 7613. It means that there was a probability (certainty) of 99% that no individual result was in error by more than 3%, if the sample was completely random; challenging this assertion is the equivalent of challenging the universally accepted laws of statistical science.
But was the sample completely random? It is possible that members' readiness to complete the questionnaire might have been higher amongst genuinely active members than those who only join for our insurance and have no other interest in us. In this case the findings are likely to be slightly more supportive of our newsletter, website and activities programme than the true average.
Between completing this analysis and 1st December when the survey closed, only a further 6 paper and 16 web questionnaires were submitted; these are too few to have had any significant effect on the reported results, however, these later entries were included in the prize draw (see above). This analysis had to be completed early to catch the 2011 AGM weekend at which these results were presented to the membership.
"Please tick those of the following subsidised training courses you might well wish to go on:"
The following 3 tables revealed the take-up actually achieved:
"Please tick those of the following subsidised training courses you might well wish to go on"
The following table revealed the take-up actually achieved:
Note: the courses listed are those designed especially for we English speakers and excludes guided meets instigated by our own members. Note the difference between stated inclinations and actual take-up.
"With reference to our quarterly club Newsletter please tick just ONE of the following statements, whichever most clearly reflects your views."
Beware of misreading the finding that fewer than one per cent of members do not even take the Newsletter out of its mail packet. We all receive junk mail, much of it is plastic wrapped. Even if we have no intention whatsoever of even opening such junk mail, let alone reading it, we always have to remove it from its plastic wrapper since the two components are required to be recycled separately.
With a membership in 2019 of around 16,000, this suggests that we might be mailing 32,000 Newsletter per year to members who do not want them. We have been aware of this for 8 years but have done nothing about it.
"With reference to our programme of MEETS, please tick just ONE of the following statements, whichever most clearly reflects your views:"
The above results were given in a Powerpoint presentation to the members at the AGM Weekend held at Grasmere in November 2011.
Membership profile (from the 2011 Membership Database)
This did not need to be included in the survey, per se, since our Membership Database provided the data:
Age Profile:
Gender Profile: Male = 66.77%; Female = 33.23%
Residence Profile:
UK: 82%
Abroad: 17%
The following table (from the 2010 Membership Database) shows the earliest years of continuous membership:
Leaving 951, thus confirming 14.8% have been members for at least 10 years
Total 6,418
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